Best AL players 25 and younger

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The future is bright for Major League Baseball.

With the steroid era in the rearview mirror, the next generation of baseball superstars is ready to shoulder the load, and that groups includes many future All-Stars not named Mike Trout or Bryce Harper.

Sporting News takes look a the future of professional baseball with our 25-and-Under All-Stars. We unveiled our National League team last week. Now here’s a position-by-position list of the best young players in the American League:

Batter Up: Perez signed with the Royals as a 16-year-old amateur free agent out of Venezuela and, after just 39 games during his MLB debut 2011 season (he hit .331), the Royals locked him up with a five-year deal. Scouts rave about his defensive ability behind the plate, and his offensive production at the plate.

Batter Up: Hosmer, the third overall pick in 2008, reached the majors before his 22nd birthday and hit .293 with 19 homers in his rookie season. His 2012 season (.232, 11 HR) was a pretty big disappointment, though, and he started slowly in 2013 before Hall of Famer George Brett took over as hitting coach and breathed life back into Hosmer’s swing.

Batter Up: Altuve practically forced his promotion to the majors by hitting a combined .389 between high-Class A and Class AA in 2011, and he’s more than held his own in the bigs—he hit .290 with 33 stolen bases as Houston’s full-time second baseman in 2012.

Batter Up: Andrus, who turns 25 in late August, has been a regular in the bigs from the time he was 20 years old. Always known for his flashy glove, he posted a solid .286/.349/.727 slash line as a hitter in 2012. This year, his average was mired in the .240 range before he rattled off a 16-game hitting streak starting in mid-July.

Batter Up: Baltimore’s young superstar has exceeded pretty much every expectation, from the moment he was thrown into the heat of a pennant race at a new position about a month after his 20th birthday. This year, his first full season, he’s leading the majors in doubles and is one of baseball’s best defensive third basemen.

Batter Up: With his combination of speed, defense and power, Trout is the best all-around player in baseball. He turns 22 on Wednesday. It’s almost not fair. He’s one of only eight players since baseball expanded in 1961 to post a Fangraphs WAR of 10.0 or better (Barry Bonds and Willie Mays did so in multiple years). That’s good company.

Batter Up: Myers is Kansas City’s worst nightmare. The Royals, wanting to make a playoff push, traded Myers to the Rays for a pair of veteran starters this offseason. Oops. Myers has been the key to Tampa Bay’s surge; since he was recalled for a doubleheader in Boston on June 18, the Rays are an insane 28-11, and you see Myers’ numbers above.

Batter Up: Viciedo signed a four-year, $10 million contract with the White Sox after defecting from Cuba in 2008. He hasn’t quite lived up to his legendary reputation—yet—but he did hit 25 homers for Chicago in his first full season in the big leagues.
Honorable Mention: Leonys Martin, Rangers (25), Avisail Garcia, White Sox (22). Oswaldo Arcia, Twins (22)

Batter Up: Sale made his MLB debut mere months after he was the 13th pick of the 2010 draft, then spent 2011 as a late-inning reliever in the bigs (2.79 ERA in 58 games). He jumped into the Chicago rotation in 2011 and has been one of the AL’s elite starters since. In 192 innings last season, he posted a 3.05 ERA and struck out exactly a batter per inning.

Batter Up: Despite the fact that this lefty struck out 12.7 batters per nine innings in his minor-league career, the Rays patiently moved him level by level (as is their process) and Moore’s All-Star appearance this July is proof that worked. In his second career MLB start, he threw seven shutout innings against the Rangers in a Game 1 start in the 2011 ALDS.

Batter Up: Doubront made his debut in the Boston organization at 17, and finally landed a full-time spot in the Red Sox rotation last year, at 24. The lefty had a 4.86 ERA and struck out 9.3 batters per nine innings in 29 starts during what was a disastrous season for the franchise, but this year, he’s been arguably the most reliable
starter for a playoff-bound team.

Batter Up: The A’s insisted on getting Parker, the ninth overall pick of the 2007 draft, from the Diamondbacks in the Trevor Cahill trade in December 2011. Parker, who had missed the 2010 season with Tommy John surgery, had a 3.47 ERA in 29 starts for the A’s last season, and after a rough start to 2013 has shown that same dominant stuff.

Batter Up: Scouts describe Reed’s raw stuff as “electric” and most opposing hitters would agree with that assessment; six of the first eight outs he recorded in the bigs were via the strikeout. Reed’s development during that 2011 season convinced the White Sox to trade Sergio Santos and his 30 saves to Toronto that offseason and hand Reed the closer’s job.